To eliminate obstacles to pension portability across borders, the European Commission put forward three key directive proposals between 1991 and 2005. Germany torpedoed the first pension directive proposal in 1991, offered contingent support for the second directive in 2003, and vociferously opposed the pension portability proposal of 2005. Why would German incumbents support some aspects of the single pension market, but not others?

This chapter argues that the German position towards EU pension policies needs to be explained by a combination of historical institutionalism (HI) and domestic discourse analysis (DA). Each approach by itself is insufficient to account for the articulation of preferences between 1991 and 2007. HI explains why the Kohl, Schröder, and Merkel governments – despite all fundamental differences in pensionrelated values – protected employer-sponsored book reserve pensions, a cornerstone of Germany's coordinated market economy, from the scope of EU directives. However, national trajectories of policy development are not destiny and do not predict variation in German preferences. We therefore need to include a theoretical framework that illustrates how interests were conceptualized and reframed during this period.

Discourse analysis, which consists of a coordinative dimension (who said what to whom) and a communicative sphere (how political officials justify and legitimize change), supplies this crucial piece that is missing from HI explanations. While the status quo oriented policy stance promoted by the Kohl government succeeded in delegitimizing pro-reform voices, the Schröder administration imposed an economically efficient pension reform without much public support.